Firepower stats are irrelevant depending on what you plan to fight with a fleet.

The fleet composition in this mod revolves around a few concepts :

1: Carrier capacity : the main source of damage, both to shields and hull, is the responsability of your bomber squadrons. That's why you should prioritize ships that possess,as many bomber slots as possible, while being resistant to damage themselves. For the Empire, that would be the ISD II and the Venator.

2: Fleet Auras : these are specific to quite a few ships and either allow the introduction of maluses on ennemy ships (or entire ennemy fleets), and bonuses to your own fleet. These are specific research options you will unlock during the midgame. Some of these are very useful and include a 15% firerate bonus to all the ships in a specific fleet, à 15% bonus to armor penetration, an auto-repair of armor and shields (if you don't have the admiral with the trait ; but the Empire doesn't have access to this ship) and so on. Having these ships in your fleet is very valuable, but I don't know if the effet is cumulative or if this is just a 1 time bonus regardless of the number of ships that possess the aura. Anyway, it's very strong and you should definitely use this mechanic by adding said ships to your fleets.

3: AA and fighters : you can get away by having no Laser Cannons at all in your fleet, because you will deploy an overhelming amount of fighters yourself, which will automatically protect your ships. It makes Corvettes and Frigates less valuable, but you can focus on high evasion builds with small and medium turbolaser.

4: Weapon diversity : it's up to you as to how many turbolasers you should bring to a fight, but you should try to bring a bit of everything to the table. That's the main philosophy of the mod with all the different ships but some just aren't worth it : I found the Missile/torpedo ships to be just underwhelming with bad accuracy and low damage.

My Empire fleet comp during the end-game, assuming you reached 1000 fleet capacity with the repeatable tech:

3 Titan Mark II (it's a much improved Allegiance-class Battlecruiser with a lot of special weapons and most importantly, fighters/bombers)
8-10 ISD II (the backbone of the fleets with most of the fighters/bombers).
5 Venators (optionnal ; because I absolutely love the way the ship looks ; also because their dual heavy DBY-27 turbolasers deal a lot of damage).
1 Tector
1 Procursator
1 Dominator (for the ones that try to escape and it's got a lot of weapons emplacements as well).
2 VSD II (I think it's the one with the +15% fire rate aura)
1 VSD I
5 Vindicators (light carriers)
A bunch of support ships, depending on their aura and capabilities

So far, I've only played with the Empire and the Chiss Ascendancy, and the latter has much more specialized ships, which makes fleet composition much easier. The Chiss ships also have much better range on their weapons than the Empire, which makes most of their ships long range.

Either way, as soon as you start to get the repeatable techs (Armor, Shields and Weapon damage), your fleets will become indestrubtible regardless of their composition.

Figthers and Bombers are for sure more usefull in this mod compared to basegame. i had a stock katana fleet of 10 ships (around 20k combat power) going against a 18k pirate fleet and they got their asses kicked. for one i think they had trouble hitting the smaller ships and for the other they had 0 defense against fighters/bombers. so i think at least concerning Fighters and Bombers you should have your bases covered.

Thank you to both replies.

Yes , I have used the console command research all to just play around with the technologies and different options. I have found as you have both wrote that fighters play a critical role. Seeing as how I was just testing the boundries and not actually trying to play. I set up a fleet of 9 Imperial II class Star Destroyers with the highest tech , and Tie Defenders / Tie Interceptors / and Tie Bombers as the flight wings.


That seemed to work better than using two Bellator class battlecruisers which lack the fighter slots.

I also tried a combo of Lancer Frigates and Star Destroyers as the Lancers are great at screening , but in the game they are useless and get demolished quickly.

Originally posted by Hearts Of Iron:

Thank you to both replies.

That seemed to work better than using two Bellator class battlecruisers which lack the fighter slots.

I also tried a combo of Lancer Frigates and Star Destroyers as the Lancers are great at screening , but in the game they are useless and get demolished quickly.

Bellators are quite underpowered in this mod, it's actually quite surprising given the fact they're basically smaller SSDs. I woudln't rely on them because a bunch of ISD II or 1-2 Titan Mark II (Advanced Battlecruisers) are actually much more effective due to the fighters/bombers slots and the Ion weapons.

Lancers are too fragile in the end game and take quite a lot of naval capacity for their size as well. I would prioritize Vindicators (Light carriers with bombers/fighters and respectable weapons) or Ton Falk (smaller carriers with 2 fighters and 1 bomber) to put in the back line instead.

Ideally, most if not all of your ships should have the Artillery Computer which makes them sit at long range. The game will tell you in it's menu that it's 80 range, but it's actually 40 in the xml files which is enough for most weapons to still fire at ennemy ships. There is also a special module that extends weapons range by +20%, and you can stack it as well. By the time your ships actually deploy their squadrons and get in range to fire their weapons, your fighters should have decimated a fair amount of ships (corvettes and frigates get one shot as soon as you hit mid game) and taken down the shieds of Star Destroyers and Cruisers. That's why it's your main source of dmg. It does even more damage to shields than Ion Cannons.

If you've played a bit the vanilla Stellaris, you can picture SWFR squadrons as flying Kinetic Battery. By the time your fleet gets there, half of the enemy ships are dead.

The problem is that the AI isn't very good at building fleets and using them, so it quickly becomes broken.

Originally posted by Perlo:

Originally posted by Hearts Of Iron:

Thank you to both replies.

That seemed to work better than using two Bellator class battlecruisers which lack the fighter slots.

I also tried a combo of Lancer Frigates and Star Destroyers as the Lancers are great at screening , but in the game they are useless and get demolished quickly.

Bellators are quite underpowered in this mod, it's actually quite surprising given the fact they're basically smaller SSDs. I woudln't rely on them because a bunch of ISD II or 1-2 Titan Mark II (Advanced Battlecruisers) are actually much more effective due to the fighters/bombers slots and the Ion weapons.

Lancers are too fragile in the end game and take quite a lot of naval capacity for their size as well. I would prioritize Vindicators (Light carriers with bombers/fighters and respectable weapons) or Ton Falk (smaller carriers with 2 fighters and 1 bomber) to put in the back line instead.

Ideally, most if not all of your ships should have the Artillery Computer which makes them sit at long range. The game will tell you in it's menu that it's 80 range, but it's actually 40 in the xml files which is enough for most weapons to still fire at ennemy ships. There is also a special module that extends weapons range by +20%, and you can stack it as well. By the time your ships actually deploy their squadrons and get in range to fire their weapons, your fighters should have decimated a fair amount of ships (corvettes and frigates get one shot as soon as you hit mid game) and taken down the shieds of Star Destroyers and Cruisers. That's why it's your main source of dmg. It does even more damage to shields than Ion Cannons.

If you've played a bit the vanilla Stellaris, you can picture SWFR squadrons as flying Kinetic Battery. By the time your fleet gets there, half of the enemy ships are dead.

The problem is that the AI isn't very good at building fleets and using them, so it quickly becomes broken.

Yes, the AI however is an issue not just in Stellaris, but in all of the Paradox games I have played to date. After a couple games , you see the patterns and without trying you are able to adjust. This was especially true in Hearts of Iron :( had to go through all the xml files and edit the countries , ai , etc. to actually create an AI that would react to what the player was doing , as opposed to following a preset pattern. It actually made the game alot harder , just not as historical as I had edited very heavily.


I am not in favor of using large SSD's. I prefer the Imperial II Star Destroyer. Right now I started a campaign to play through and see how it all functions. Left the Galactic Empire at the start , but do not plan to wage war. Working on creating a Xenophobic Militant Empire. We will see as now I have elected leaders and a decent variety of species that I have begun to mark as undesireables. Playing as the Ciutric Hegemony. Wanted a faction that had Imperial class ships and yet provided a wider variety of options going down the road.

Originally posted by Hearts Of Iron:

Originally posted by Perlo:

Bellators are quite underpowered in this mod, it's actually quite surprising given the fact they're basically smaller SSDs. I woudln't rely on them because a bunch of ISD II or 1-2 Titan Mark II (Advanced Battlecruisers) are actually much more effective due to the fighters/bombers slots and the Ion weapons.

Lancers are too fragile in the end game and take quite a lot of naval capacity for their size as well. I would prioritize Vindicators (Light carriers with bombers/fighters and respectable weapons) or Ton Falk (smaller carriers with 2 fighters and 1 bomber) to put in the back line instead.

Ideally, most if not all of your ships should have the Artillery Computer which makes them sit at long range. The game will tell you in it's menu that it's 80 range, but it's actually 40 in the xml files which is enough for most weapons to still fire at ennemy ships. There is also a special module that extends weapons range by +20%, and you can stack it as well. By the time your ships actually deploy their squadrons and get in range to fire their weapons, your fighters should have decimated a fair amount of ships (corvettes and frigates get one shot as soon as you hit mid game) and taken down the shieds of Star Destroyers and Cruisers. That's why it's your main source of dmg. It does even more damage to shields than Ion Cannons.

If you've played a bit the vanilla Stellaris, you can picture SWFR squadrons as flying Kinetic Battery. By the time your fleet gets there, half of the enemy ships are dead.

The problem is that the AI isn't very good at building fleets and using them, so it quickly becomes broken.

Yes, the AI however is an issue not just in Stellaris, but in all of the Paradox games I have played to date. After a couple games , you see the patterns and without trying you are able to adjust. This was especially true in Hearts of Iron :( had to go through all the xml files and edit the countries , ai , etc. to actually create an AI that would react to what the player was doing , as opposed to following a preset pattern. It actually made the game alot harder , just not as historical as I had edited very heavily.


I am not in favor of using large SSD's. I prefer the Imperial II Star Destroyer. Right now I started a campaign to play through and see how it all functions. Left the Galactic Empire at the start , but do not plan to wage war. Working on creating a Xenophobic Militant Empire. We will see as now I have elected leaders and a decent variety of species that I have begun to mark as undesireables. Playing as the Ciutric Hegemony. Wanted a faction that had Imperial class ships and yet provided a wider variety of options going down the road.

Playing as the Ciutric Hegemony might not be the best choice since they can't actually get all of the Empire's shipset. You will never be able to research the techs related to the Executor (the best SSD) nor the Death Star (which behaves as a very slow moving Colossus). Be wary of the Galactic Empire type Federation you just left because the AI has a tendency to bully Empires into submission, especially if it hates you early on. If you're playing on a Canon Map (not a sandbox one), you should know that the Empire get 3x 12k fleets with 3 Venators in each fleet, with Vader as an immortal admiral. It's preferable to not piss them off early on.

Because of the way the game works, you will be forced to wage war at some points against your neighbors (the Republic Loyalist, the Mandalorians..) : the game economy relies on having as many planets as possible and growing pops takes twice as long compared to the vanilla game (it's even worse for droids). You will see there are huge pirate fleets blocking nearby systems, which will block your expansion. You need planets to get a strong economy in order to defend yourself, because your neighbors hate you with a burning passion thanks to your "Imperial Loyalist" status.

Also, if you haven't done it already, pay attention to the Traditions of your Empire, because they will differ from the ones of the Galactic Empire.

Anyway, good luck on your playthrough and enjoy the brutal end game crisis !

PERLO ,

I understand I am lacking certain ships. Even the Inderdictor Star Destroyer is not available to me. Have to settle for Immobilizers ,

Not having the Executor is of little significance to me. I adhere to Thrawns doctrine of a powerful yet mobile fleet , and the ISD II is a great balanced ship. Will be aiming to get the Tie Defenders/Interceptors so that I can compensate for lack of smaller corvettes

My expansion will be based on choke points to allow maximum efficiency and hoping the AI also goes to war against itself.

Also , for the aspect of changing it up , I shall want to purge all non humans from my Empire.

We shall see.
Reason I do not want to play as the Galactic Empire in the canon map is because it will be too easy and boring once I know the AI.

Same reason I never play as powerful nations in EUIV , HeartsofIron etc.

Thank you.